One entry, one entry...
‘spose I should update this thing.
Our South Asia survey trip was supercalafrickinawesome. Really. I don’t know how else to talk about it, other than to say that it was time well spent in a part of the world that we love and might live in one day. Lots of clarity was had…along with lots of odd experiences. Ask me about it in person and I might just talk your ear off. Anyway, I can’t really compress six weeks of amazingness into words right now, so to save you from complete boredom, here are some stats to give you a snapshot.
- Countries visited: 3
- Total distance by air: 20,490km; by rail: 3,204km
- Actual duration of flight from Singapore to Karachi: ~9 hours; perceived duration: 19 hours
- Estimated weight of pack at beginning of trip: 16.5kg; at end of trip: 19.5kg
- Unexpected McDonalds sightings in Pakistan: 5
- New forms of transport tried in Karachi: 1
- Visits to bazaars: 4; time of each visit: ~3.5 hours
- Average cost of a taxi to the bazaar: Rs. 60
- Sunsets over the Arabian Sea witnessed: 1
- Number of bag-snatchings: 1; number of successful bag-snatchings: 0
- Estimated loudness of fellow passenger’s snores on the Karakoram Express train: 102 dB
- Wedding anniversaries celebrated whilst abroad: 1
- Kilograms of gajar halwa cooked: ~12; consumed: 1
- Church gatherings attended: 4
- Borders crossed on foot: 1; number of times passport was checked at border crossing: 5
- Guessed number of pilgrims at the Golden Temple, Amritsar, when we visited: 5,000
- Offers of drugs in Paharganj, Delhi: 12; average distance travelled between offers: 10m
- Hotels stayed in: 3
- Estimated waiting time to enter Taj Mahal complex at 3:00pm: 3.5 hours; at 9:00am: 3.5 minutes
- Number of allocated seats per berth in Indian trains: 6
- Number of passengers per berth, on average, in Indian trains: 16
- Cups of chai consumed: ~35
- Visits to barbers: 3; number of times head shaved: 2
- Number of Hindu babas witnessed in Varanasi: 12
- Hours spent waiting in an airport at Kolkata for fog to clear: 6
- Books read in Bangladesh: 1
- Bangla names for objects learnt: 18
- Trips to Chinese restaurants: 1; number of vegetarian dishes in the ‘Vegetarian’ section of their menu: 0
- Late-night life-changing discussions: 2
- Decisions made regarding future: 2
There will be some form of open-house thingy coming if you want more than that.
A sound, a thin silence
The time has come, it seems.
Lorien and I begin our grand six-week overseas jaunt tomorrow. We will get up at about 4:00am tomorrow morning and will be chauffered to the airport (by the megasuperfantastic Frank and the lovely Rach). From there, we catch several planes, spend lots of time waiting around in airport transit lounges, and land in South Asia sometime at about 10:00pm their time. It’s a holiday with a missional edge – part of the purpose of the trip is for Lorien to show me all the places where she grew up, part of it is to have some much-needed downtime, and part of it is to see what God’s got going on over there, and how we might be a part of that in a long-term sense.
We’re hoping to have a pretty smashing time! It hasn’t been that long since we last visited that parted of the world, but I’ve been craving it for a while, and it will be awesome to visit as marrieds (rather than part of a team), so we can use our time without having to worry about a team of others.
Some random facts so far:
- Airlines do not appear to issue paper tickets anymore. We went down to our friendly travel agent and all she gave us was a printed itinerary with an e-ticket number on it. Allegedly, this is all we need to travel, as the airlines have some secret database or website where our details are stored. I feel slightly unprepared, nay, naked without paper tickets.
- Visas for all three countries we are visiting cost ~$650. Ouch.
- We thought we would be leaving behind the summer heat in Sydney and enjoying the cooler climes of the northern hemisphere. Turns out we were wrong: tomorrow will be about 33°C in Sydney, and 28°C in our first destination.
- Our primary mode of transport will be train or autorickshaw.
- We have heard good things about Changi Airport in Singapore, including rumours of a free cinema and free X-Box (I think, “Awesome!”; wife thinks, “Er…no.”). In God’s provision, we are going there instead of Suvarnabhumi in Thailand.
- This will be the longest time I have been away from my home, family, and country. It will also be the first Christmas away from both of my families. I’m not sure if that bothers me, though.
Anticipating: airports!, seeing new places, meeting new people, cheap and awesome food, spicy tea in clay cups, bazaars, flexing my flabby Bangla muscles, catching trains, wearing salwar qamiz and lungi, riding in the back of rickshaws, time to reflect and write, taking lots of photos and video, getting my head shaved with a razor blade, catching up with old friends and making new ones, grand architecture and beautiful ruins, fellowship, time with Lorien.
Anxious about: many long plane flights and weird time-zone crossings, heat and humidity, sharing my personal space, missing transport connections, getting lost, epic language fail(s), epic culture fail(s), bags getting lost/stolen, various tummy bugs, strikes, explosions, exhaustion, not resting.
Talk to you in six weeks.
And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire a sound, a thin silence. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
(1 Kings 19:11-13, ESV)
Bridges are burnt
I quit my old job today. Er, woo.
The choice wasn’t too hard. There was no anguish or fretting, no late-night chats with Lorien over a cup of tea trying to talk through the pros and cons of it. I just woke up yesterday and wrote a resignation letter, then posted it this morning (how did quitting become so easy and impersonal?). It was more a necessity to leave – I am enjoying full-time paid ministry work, I think I am more productive for the gospel as an MTSer than I was at my secular job (which shows how much of a wuss I am), and my year of unpaid leave will expire when I am on a train somewhere between Delhi to Varanasi early in 2009. So, I quit.
Quitting feels like a concession to failure. The job I did with the NSW government was hard, like climbing a mountain with two heavy rucksacks on my back, a suitcase in one arm, a watermelon in the other. There was a lot of work. There was a lot of heartache. There was nearly burnout. My lame efforts at sharing the good news about Jesus with my co-workers did not seem to fall on fertile soil. To leave makes me feel like I’m bailing out when perhaps there is more I can do. But God gave me the MTS position for this year and next. It has reoriented my thinking about ministry (I daresay I have learnt more about the Bible, about God, and about ministry in the last ten months than I have in the last five or six years). It has given me so many more opportunities and connections which, I pray, will be useful in the coming years. And, ultimately, the government, though generous in giving me a whole year of unpaid leave, cannot be my employer while I am doing full-time ministry. So, it’s one or the other.
My thinking about my old job is more sentimental than I thought it would be. It was a difficult job, but a good job, and as I reflected on it while I wrote my resignation letter, it is one worth doing. I had a lot of impact in certain points in the community I worked in. I met a lot of great people and made some good friends, and I got to work with some pretty awesome little guys and girls.
The plan now is to finish MTS and then go on to college somewhere – the jury is still out between the Big Two in Sydney, though my slight incline is becoming somewhat more inclinated – and then out into the great beyond. It is scary to not have a certain plan, but heck, God is in control.
Escapee
Back in June or July, we became the owners of a fishtank and four goldfish, and have since enjoyed having these pets (or pieces of furniture? I can’t decide) swimming around in our lounge room. But something had always been missing. Goldfish are fine, but they’re so everyday, so bourgeois. So I went to the aquarium shop and returned with a new resident for our tank.
So named because she is an apple snail, Granny Smith has enlivened our tank by scooting around and scavenging on the leftover food and er, goldfish byproducts which litter the gravel. Her hobbies appear to include climbing to the top of the tank and base-jumping back to the ground, eating lettuce, hiding in logs, and getting stuck behind pipes and hoses. We also learnt that she is at least semi-amphibious, as she climbed out of the tank while we were at church and we found her on the carpet when we got home. Fortunately, she survived long enough for us to drop her back in the water.
We initially thought of Granny as elderly, but she surprised us by laying a clutch of eggs just above the waterline. We are waiting to see if they hatch – not sure what we’ll do with all those little snail-lets, especially as each clutch contains between one to three hundred eggs. If you are into escargot, please contact us.
Sent via website
One of the pluses of working on staff at a church? Receiving unsolicited emails people submit via the website (I’m not sure why they choose me – there are six other people on staff!). Here are some excerpts from two which I thought were worth sharing.
#1 – received 25/08/2008
I am writing to you on behalf of Anderson, Indiana-based pop/rock band no greater sky. We are scheduling dates for our upcoming Australia tour, which will run from November 21 to February 11. We would love to have Toongabbie Anglican Church as a part of our tour! Specifically, we will be in your area
23-26 November. Whether it be through a one-night, weekend, or week-long concert and/or worship event, we are open to what will meet the needs of your church best. We are also available for Christmas events. Below, I have included dates that are available for booking.
I did end up looking up the band’s myspace page and it turns out they are a real band. Is it a sign that you’ve made it as a church when US Christian pop/rock bands are saying that they would love to include you as part of a tour? I suggested to others in our staff team that we book in the week-long concert and/or worship event, but so far, I haven’t heard back.
#2 – received 11/09/2008
God said to worship on the Sabbath not Sunday. You can easily check and see the Catholic Church changed it about 400 AD. and every church has kept this day since. Wrong. Saturday is the day. God said to work 6 days and to rest on the Sabbath. You study some and you will see that Saturday is the day.
The 4th commandment says to keep it Holy. You sin every week by worshiping on Sunday. You will also see that the emperior [sic] worshiped on a Sunday and he with your good buddies the Catholic Church decided they could change anything in the Bible, but they can’t changed [sic] a thing.
Picked up this morning when I checked my emails. I apparently missed the memo which locked Saturday in as the only acceptable Sabbath…and the memo where I became good buddies with the entirety of the Roman Catholic Church. Better get me to a confessional and deal with all those sinful Sunday church gatherings I’ve been a part of for the past twenty-three years.
From before creation
I recently tussled with the idea of predestination as part of an assessment I did for my MTS program. The task was really to design a way of teaching predestination in a way that doesn’t require your listeners to have a BTh, but true to nerdular form, I ended up writing a companion essay to think through the issues more fully and get my head straight on what the Bible teaches on predestination.
The main surprise for me was that the whole doctrine is really not as hard as I thought it would be. In fact, I suspect people get hung up at one of three points and remain stuck there because predestination is one of those things that doesn’t neatly slot into our Western, rationalistic, logic-oriented minds (privately, I do wonder if this will become less of an issue as pluralism sinks in as an acceptable way of assessing ideas). The three points where I reckon most people run aground are:
- The idea that God predestines some and not others to eternal life. This is understandable; to accept this, it requires us to defer to God and acknowledge that He has not chosen to predestine everyone to eternal life, but rather some to eternal life and some to eternal punishment.
- The tension between God’s sovereignty (or, as Packer would argue, His Kingship) and human responsibility for sin (or, God’s role as Judge), seeing as the two are made plain in Scripture but appear irreconcilable. If God is sovereign and all our thoughts and ways are known by Him and subject to His will, how can we be held accountable for our sin? For a related difficulty, see point one above.
- The question of falling away – specifically, if God has predestined His elect, and someone who appears to be elect falls away, were they really elect in the first place?
I could write a lengthy article about these, but I won’t (perhaps I will make my essay available, for the interested). But, I will say this – could it be that our biggest problem with predestination, as a doctrine, is not that it is nonsense, or unfair, or inconsistent, but rather that we are sometimes unwilling to adopt a position of humility and accept that God’s ways are higher than ours? The conflicting, seemingly-incompatible truths presented by the Bible may cause our minds to bristle and may spawn questions which appear to have no answer. This, though, should not lead us instantly to disillusionment. Rather, perhaps we should acknowledge that our human wisdom is finite and accept that we will not always be able to wrangle Biblical truth into a logically-consistent framework. The tensions and difficulties we encounter are no doubt frustrating, but there is also comfort in the knowledge that God would not have created such tensions and difficulties if such things were meant to be skimmed over.
What are your thoughts on predestination? What difficulties do you have with this doctrine when it is taught?
Happenings
New things going down include:
- Visiting a Christian dude in an infamous detention centre, and wrestling with how to be effective in ministry with him.
- Pronouncing my second-hand espresso machine dead recently, seeing as it has turned into a squealing, slavering coffee zombie.
- As per the above, a return to plunger coffee.
- Finishing Scripture for a second term. My Kindy kids enjoyed their lesson on Jesus’ attitude towards children, and my Year 3s still show a ravenous curiosity about other countries (though, when I try to tell them about Christians in third-world nations, they seem more interested in why the left hand is considered dirty than in the hardships endured by Christian nationals for the gospel).
- Four newcomers to the house. We have inherited goldfish from friends Dan and Priscilla, who are emigrating south of the border and don’t want their aquatic friends anymore. We are now proud owners of these handsome fish. Any ideas on names? I had goldfish when I was in uni and named them after philosophers and then Roman mythical heroes, but that seems a bit tired now.
I won’t be around for a little while – though, if you are out and about north of the border, you might find me here, running around with a bunch of kids in Townsville. But, f’real, I’m pretty stoked that MTS gives me the opportunity to get involved in these kinds of conferences. I went to the LiT camp when I was in Year 12, not long after it first began, and it was great for building practical skills as well as introducing me to Christians outside of my home church. I really hope and pray that this inaugural Launch conference does the same for the kids who attend.
Sermonising
I first preached the Word in a church context back in May 2006. I was kindly given a go at the lecturn for a new preacher’s night, which was an initiative to give people a chance to write and present a sermon based on a passage of their choosing. I chose Ezekiel 37 and ended up preaching what ended up sounding like an essay on the text, with something about Jesus shoehorned in at the end. The feedback was kind, but, I feel, avoided the truth about the negative aspects of my style and my approach to the text – in hindsight, I realise that I didn’t really approach the passage from a ‘whole Bible’ perspective and didn’t devote much time to looking at how the passage is fulfilled in Jesus, which is a shame, because it’s a golden picture of redemption and recreation and humble obedience to the true King.
Preaching is now part of my job description, and I recently had a go at giving a Bible talk as part of a series on Daniel. Fortunately, my trainer saw fit to give me Daniel 5, which lies in the narrative section and not the acid-trip apocalyptic section, but the challenge remained to conquer the weaknesses of my first attempt. The initial draft blew out to 4,500 words, but with some effort and painstaking trimming, I got it down to a reasonable 3,000 words which still managed to communicate my intentions. I feel that it went off OK on the night.
Did I manage it? You can decide – listen to my efforts right here and see what you think.
Blargle
Wordle seems to be the new toy for those hip computer people (thanks to Guan for the find). It makes plain text more interesting by plotting it into artistic clouds, coloured and everyfink. Sweet, eh?
The applications for various word-related frippery are many and varied. Guan pointed it to his journal; others have allegedly converted the ESV New Testament into word clouds. The interesting thing is that when you…wordle your text (behold, I am anticipating that ‘Wordle’ will suffer the same fate of ‘Google’ and become verbised), the size of each word reflects its frequency in the source. Ashamedly, this reminded me of the various psychometric instruments which utilise word frequency as an independent variable, and made me think that psychology journals would be so much easier to read if they only used word clouds instead of graphs. You can take the nerd out of the university, but…
Anyhoo, if you weren’t at SNC on Sunday night, you can catch up with what was said by clicking below. Perhaps you could play ‘Spot the Illustration’?
Grind
The word is that I have bruxism.
This saddens me, for lo, I used to have very good teeth. Yet I had been wondering why a lone front tooth had, like a glacier, been inexorably working backwards. A four-years-late trip to the dentist revealed why. “You’re probably grinding your teeth when you sleep,” he says, shortly after telling me that I will need root canal surgery ‘one day’ on an old filling. Having that contrast in my head makes bruxism seem like good news. Still, the tooth doctor also says that if I don’t do anything about it, my glacial front tooth will eventually move so far that it will start interfering with my tongue, which means braces will be required, so he tells me to try a mouthguard when I sleep.
The medical community doesn’t seem to know why some people grind their teeth while most people don’t. I tried to diagnose myself using Wikipedia’s associated factors list and the only match was ‘relatively high levels of consumption of caffeinated drinks and foods’. Does two cups of coffee a day count as relatively high consumption? Anyway, so much for modern medicine, because not only do they not know why it happens, but they can’t cure it – the best they could offer me was the exercise in damage control that is the acrylic mouthguard, which the bruxist must wear at night, every night, for the rest of their lives.
The idea appealed, in some ways. It’s cooler than dentures, but you still get to mess around with something that looks like your teeth, and the opportunities for practical jokes are there. But it’s not as comfortable as it might look to sleep with a mouthguard in – try stuffing the space next to your gums with erasers and you’ll understand why.
And, my brain seems to understand this, even while sleeping, because for three out of four nights, I have managed to remove the mouthguard in my sleep and hidden it in the blankets. This causes some consternation upon waking: the first time it happened, I thought I had swallowed the entire thing without knowing. It’s a miracle that I haven’t choked.
Any fellow teeth-grinders out there?
